With advances in medicine has come a corresponding need for additional treatments and medications. Pharmaceutical companies have developed and made available ever-increasing numbers of medications suitable for prescription by doctors to their patients. Medication on particular days is normally called for, commonly at intervals during the day, and often, more than one type of medicine is required. Frequently, sophisticated medical and pharmacological advances have been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the potency of the medications, and the consequences of over or under dosage is quite often severe. Consequently, it is presently more important than ever that patients maintain accurate records of dosages which they have administered to themselves.
Unfortunately, many of the individuals who most need such medications have an impaired physical or mental condition which interferes with their ability to remember the medicines which they have taken. In addition, many such patients lack the manual dexterity needed to use writing implements to maintain the required records.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,675,620 has recognized the problem, and has suggested the use of a system involving removeable labels or pegs individually identifiable with dosage intervals. While the system therein described is an improvement, unfortunately, it is inflexible in the sense that there is no way to modify the system to correspond to an individual's personal needs for medication. In other words, it is difficult to incorporate into the system taught the dosage periods and related matters prescribed for a particular person, having specific, personal needs. An attempt to employ a label system designed to respond to all needs within a broad spectrum of dosage possibilities not only is confusing, but it can easily lead to mistakes by impaired individuals. Furthermore, the labels and marker pegs upon which the system taught by the patent depends, can easily, inadvertantly become dislodged or lost.